The Ministry of Health and Welfare has finalized its budget for fiscal year 2024.

It expanded budgets to establish a regionally integrated essential medical care system and secure global competitiveness in the bio and digital health industries.

The ministry said its budget for FY 2024 won approval at a Cabinet meeting Tuesday. Total expenditures amounted to 122.45 trillion won ($92.58 billion), up 12.2 percent from 109.183 trillion won this year.

That is more than four times higher than the 2.8 percent increase in total government expenditure, reflecting the government's intention to minimize the increase in its total expenditure to secure financial stability while making bold investments in areas that the country must prioritize, such as support for the socially vulnerable class and investment in the future, it said.

The ministry’s budget for next year has been formed by focusing on four key areas -- strengthening the welfare of the vulnerable, overcoming the declining birthrate, establishing a regionally integrated essential medical care system, and securing global competitiveness in bio and digital health sectors.

In the health and medical sector, it will operate a pilot project to reorganize the emergency medical delivery system in six regions so that all emergency patients can receive final treatment quickly in the area of occurrence, and a project to overhaul the emergency medical system such as a rotating on-call system for each disease among hospitals in the region so that surgeries and procedures can be performed at all times.

Besides, it will set up regional emergency medical situation rooms in four regions to transport emergency patients, expand the number of personnel at the central emergency medical center by six, and introduce one more dedicated ambulance and a medical helicopter for transporting severe emergency patients.

More specifically, it increased the Emergency Medical Support and Development Program budget by 24 billion won, from 30.6 billion won this year to 54.6 billion won in 2024. In detail, it increased by 6.2 billion won for the pilot project to reorganize the emergency medical delivery system and invested 5.1 billion won to establish a rotating on-call operation for each major emergency disease.

The ministry expanded the budget for supporting the emergency medical transportation system by 17 billion won, from 24 billion won to 25.7 billion won.

It increased the budget to support the operation of severe emergency medical centers by 12.7 billion won, from 10.9 billion won to 23.6 billion won, and allocated a new budget of 10 billion won to operate wide-area emergency medical situation rooms.

Another primary policy was creating a pediatric medical system that reassures children and parents.

First, the ministry will establish five 24-hour pediatric consultation centers to resolve blind spots in pediatric care, where parents can call anytime when their children are sick. In addition, to support the operation of Moonlight Children's Hospitals, it will give 200 million won ($151,200) each to 45 such hospitals and increase the number of pediatric emergency medical centers from 10 to 12.

To expand the infrastructure for treating critically ill pediatric patients, it will expand the number of public specialized treatment centers from 12 to 14 and develop five regional base hospitals for pediatric cancer for treating and recovering pediatric cancer patients.

In particular, the government will provide a new training allowance of 1 million won per month for pediatricians and full-time doctors to foster pediatric medical personnel.

In detail, the ministry has allocated 4.6 billion won for the pediatric consultation center pilot project and significantly expanded the budget for night and holiday treatment centers for pediatric patients from 200 million won this year to 4.7 billion won in 2024.

The budget for supporting the operation of the pediatric specialized emergency medical system will increase from 5.2 billion won to 7.8 billion won. The budget for public specialized treatment centers for children will increase from 1 billion won to 6.1 billion won.

Besides, it has newly formed a budget of 6.4 billion won for establishing a pediatric and adolescent cancer treatment system and 4.4 billion won to support training allowances for minor and full-time doctors.

It also included a budget for a paradigm shift in mental health centered on prevention. Accordingly, a budget of 53.9 billion won has been set aside for the National Mental Health Investment Project to ensure that all citizens can receive psychological counseling services when needed.

To expand mental health infrastructure, the ministry expanded the crisis intervention team at mental health welfare centers to respond to mental emergency patients at risk of self-harm from 204 to 306 and increased the related budget from 75.2 billion won to 79.1 billion won.

The number of regional mental emergency medical centers that can respond to emergencies will always increase from 10 to 12, accompanied by a budget increase from 2.6 billion won to 3.6 billion won.

To support the economic burden of pregnancy and childbirth, it has increased the budget for maternal and child health programs by 11 billion won, from 13.4 billion won to 24.4 billion won. That includes 6.3 billion won for mandatory fertility screenings and new support for assisted reproductive technology using frozen eggs for infertile women.

It will also implement policies to secure global bio and digital health competitiveness. However, the budget to support the pharmaceutical industry was cut by 8.7 billion won from 44.6 billion won to 35.9 billion won.

In contrast, the budget for strengthening the competitiveness of the vaccine raw material market increased by 5 billion won from 7.9 billion won to 12.9 billion won. The budget for bio and digital health R&D to secure future growth engines increased by 83.4 billion won from 696.7 billion won to 780.1 billion won.

Besides, large-scale R&D budgets will get new investment, including 49.5 billion won for the Korean “ARPA-H” to solve national health challenges and 60.4 billion won for the “Boston-Korea Project” for global joint research.

2024 budget, compiled under difficult financial conditions, reflects the government’s concern about what it should prioritize." Said Kim Heon-joo, assistant minister for planning and coordination at the ministry. ministry has compiled the 2024 budget with a focus on investments for the future, such as protecting the truly vulnerable in society, expanding essential medical care to protect people's lives, overcoming the declining birthrate, and fostering strategic industries."

The 2024 budget will be finalized later this year after deliberations by the National Assembly.